The Culture and the Canada-US Border (CCUSB) network invites proposals for 20 minute papers, or full panels, for its inaugural conference to be held at Algoma University, Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, from 25th-27th May 2013.

Where border studies in North America has hitherto focused primarily on US engagement with Mexico to the south, the CCUSB network seeks to shift border discussion North to the 49th parallel, and to investigate the representation of the border in both American and Canadian culture and cultural production.

As part of a series of CCUSB events, this conference will intervene in familiar border discourses, which have expanded out of the social and political contexts of the US-Mexico border, while the Canadian border with the USA has tended to be overlooked—prior to 9.11 at least—as ‘passive’. Ultimately we seek to develop further border-specific conversations within Hemispheric and Transnational Studies, drawing attention to the ways in which cultural production at/on the Canada-US border both corroborates and unsettles that narrative of ‘passivity’, and highlights the nuances and exigencies of US-Canadian relations, as well as Canada’s unique place in the cultural history of the Americas.

Algoma University is a small progressive university in Northern Ontario overlooking the Canada US border, providing an ideal location for the staging of this conference. The strategic location of the Twin Cities of Sault Canada and Sault Michigan on the St. Mary’s River is the site of a rich international history linked to border issues, including those surrounding indigeneity and the border, the cross-fertilization of cultural identity, and the culture and ‘architecture’ of post-9/11 security and surveillance. The Algoma campus is located on the site of a former Indian residential school, and now includes Anishinaabe programs through Shingwauk Education Trust. For the 2013 CCUSB conference we will have the option of accommodation on site so that participants can enjoy the campus. For further details, visit: http://www.algomau.ca

We seek contributions that examine issues raised by the cultural implications of the Canada-US border in Canadian and/or American literature, television, cinema, visual art, music, and other cultural forms, as well as the significance of such cultural forms within other discourses—truth and reconciliation, health policy, security, foreign policy, and so on. We particularly encourage papers focusing on the following issues, though submissions on any relevant area of interest are welcome:

- Indigeneity and the border(lands)
- migration and immigration
- cultural cross-fertilization
- militarization of the border
- cultures and architectures of surveillance
- racialisation along the border
- américanité and the Québec-US border
- Canada and hemispheric America
- language and regionalism
- the culture of leisure on and across the border

Please send proposals for 20-minute papers and a brief CV to CCUSBorder@kent.ac.uk by 30th November 2012. Panel proposals of 3 papers (for a 90 minute slot) should include paper proposals plus a brief (100 words) summary of the panel’s theme.

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The CCUSB network, funded by the Leverhulme Trust, grew out of a conference held at the University of Kent, UK, in 2009. Its core members are located at the Universities of Kent and Nottingham, SUNY Buffalo, Algoma, Mt. Royal (Calgary), and Royal Roads (Victoria). Participation in the network’s activities does not require membership. For further details visit: http://www.kent.ac.uk/ccusb

Catherine Barter
Research Network Administrator | Culture and the Canada-US Border
University of Kent

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